


Immortality, Part One

by Hannibals_Jorts



Series: Immortality [1]
Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Cemetery, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, London, Male-Female Friendship, New Beginnings, Other, Poetry, Resolution, Romance, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibals_Jorts/pseuds/Hannibals_Jorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Frankenstein is preparing for her next adventure - travel abroad. While being fitted for new clothes, she is startled to hear of the death of someone she held in high esteem. Intent on mourning, she visits the grave, where she runs into an old acquaintance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immortality, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Even though I loved the ending of the show, I felt there were some loose story threads. Most of all, I wanted to see a final scene between Caliban/John Clare and Lily.  
> I do not think they would have run away together, but I do think they might have bonded over the shared pain of losing a child, and losing their mutual friend Vanessa. Yes, John Clare could be a massive idiot when it came to affairs of the heart, but I can't help but love him, and hope that Lily would some day let go of some of her anger.  
> I hope you enjoy, and comments are always welcome!

The fitting room attendant gave a final yank on the corset’s lacing. Incredibly, she put her foot up on the counter and hauled with all the effort of a mariner trimming sails before a hurricane. She let out a fearsome _Hrnf!_ as she did so.

“Gently, darling. Gently,” Lily breathed, catching hold of the chair’s back with both hands.

“Sorry, Miss. I’s just making sure the fit were right. You’ve such a nice figure, t’would be a shame to do less.”

Finished with her work, the attendant stepped back, allowing Lily out of the curtained cubicle and in front of a full-length mirror.

A concoction of sea-green satin encased her, with pearl-gray lacing at her cuffs, collar, and hem.

 _Odd color choices_ , Lily thought as she turned this way and that. She ran her hands along her sides, her fingers tracing the hard lines of whalebone and steel. _But the effect is quite striking. It looks like a stormy sea._

Thoughts of the sea gave rise to others, of her upcoming voyage. Laugh lines framed her eyes as she stared into the mirror.

 _I’m going to see the world! To see America, Canada, and anywhere I want! I could travel to China, if I wanted. I have all the time in the world._ Her heart swelled at the thought of adventure, and escaping the mist and misery of London. _Most of all, I look forward to leaving behind who I was when I came here. First a broken, miserable creature who died at her life’s happiest moment, only to be reborn with a heart full of boiling rage._

She lifted her head. “What do you think?”

The attendant stood with her face downcast. She plucked at the pincushion on her wrist, playing with the ceramic pinheads. “I couldn’t say, Miss.”

Lily glanced at her. “You’re awfully dreary today, Eliza. Something on your mind?”

“I’m sorry, Miss. It’s just we’ve had some bad news.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, Miss. A customer of ours has died. We went to deliver her last order to the house and they said she… she died, Miss. You being a gentle-lady and all, perhaps you knew her. It were Miss Vanessa Ives.”

 

_Where… where am I?_

Lily paused. She was on a busy street. The never-ending thunder of daily London swelled in her ears. Feet tapped on the sidewalk beside her. The wheels of a hansom cab rumbled in the street, its team snorting as they labored. A barker cried out about fresh, hot buns.

Something hard struck her shoulder.

“Pardon, Madame,” a man said from behind a sweeping mustache. His eyes flicked up and down in appreciation as he stepped around her and continued on his way.

_I barely knew Vanessa Ives. Why so glum over the death of someone I barely knew?_

In one hand was her handbag, and in the other, a slip of paper. She raised it to her eyes and found it was her receipt from Orwell’s. Her new clothes would arrive at her temporary address the next day.

_How on Earth did I not only finish the fitting, but order underclothes and delicates as well, and walk all this way with no idea where I am?_

She blinked up at the streetsigns.

 _Tankettle Carry. I take a right to get to the boarding house… But if I keep walking this way, I’ll find the cemetery._ She chewed her lip, unmindful of the obstacle she presented to the bustling crowd. It parted around her as she stood thinking. _All those rows and rows of headstones—how would I ever find her? She’s probably in some great mausoleum, with her family name carved two inches deep in the stone lintel. Better to just go home._

“Pardon, Miss. Spare a few coins for a beggar?”

A man stood at her left. He looked shabby, but was a far cry from a beggar. With mending and a wash, his clothes would still have years left in them, although his feet were bare. His face was scruffy, but nothing a razor, soap, and a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.

_What’s he playing at? Doesn’t he know some women would kill for work, and he’s begging?_

He gave her a hopeful smile and rattled a tin can at her with his left hand. His right arm ended in a bandaged stump.

She realized she was staring, and fumbled a few coins out of her handbag. She moved to drop them in his can, and her hand slipped. The coins fell in a ringing shower on the cobbles below.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”

Nonplussed, the beggar stomped on them to keep them from rolling away. He knelt and clumsily picked at the coins, his fingers bending oddly as he strained them. “That’s all right, Miss, my fault really. It only happened a few months ago, so I’m still getting used to it.”

She bit her lip to keep silent, and heard herself ask anyway, “What happened?”

He straightened, and the coins dropped one by one into the tin can. “I were attacked, Miss. Just a little while before that nasty fog come through. I were coming home from the pub, and I went down the wrong alley, I suppose. Woke up with a bunch of people standing around. I thank God for them, for they got me patched up, and I curse whoever took my hand and stole my shoes, if you may pardon me.”

“I’m… afraid I’ve nothing more to give you,” she said. She hurried past him. “Good day.”

_I will not apologize. If one of mine cut his hand off, it was for a good reason. He had it coming, no doubt._

Over the clamor of the crowd, she heard the beggar cry out, “Good day, Miss! God bless!”

 

The cemetery was empty of people, but full of that strange, crowded silence that only happens in such places. Spent emotions lingered in the air like steam after a hot bath: mostly sorrow, sometimes anger, and a kind of tired relief, such as comes after watching a loved one die over months or years. Least of all were tiny pockets of ugly, spiteful joy.

She wandered among the headstones, her shoes making no sound on the springy green turf.

_To think, only a few months ago I would have been lying in wait for grieving mothers, sisters, or daughters. I would have preyed on their sorrow, turned it into anger, and pushed them full of hate and murder out into the world. I thought I was done with all that, and yet here I am once again, prowling the graveyard…_

An image sprang to mind – of Victor, with spade and lantern, stealing through the headstones in search of a fresh grave. What light his lantern shed fell on a face eager and predatory, as of a hungry jackal slinking through a battlefield.

_He wouldn’t. And if he did, I would find him. And... and we're nothing alike. I was here to help them, to give their lives new purpose, when it seemed all hope was lost._

Another voice sounded in her mind, one that sounded like Victor:  _So did I._

She shook the thought away, and resumed her wanderings. 

A pain began in her chest at the thought of Vanessa, lying in a casket somewhere under the ground.

_I barely knew you, and yet we were like sisters when we met. I wonder why that was? Why did I spend so little time with you? Once I was away from Victor I spent all my time with Dorian… And now I’ll never get to know you any better. Ah well. I will carry what little I knew of you with me always. In a way, you shall live forever._

The wind rose, rattling the trees. The scent of fresh calla lilies drifted to her.

_From the funeral bouquet, no doubt._

The perfume came from a high-walled garden a few dozen yards away.

As she turned toward it, a figure stepped from behind a hedgerow. Its back to her, the tall shape wore a long coat, and carried a shovel as it walked. A satchel hung from its shoulder.

_It’s not Victor, too broad…_

A sunbeam fell between the trees onto a shock of jet-black hair. Still facing away, the figure moved away from her and headed toward the open gates.

_Him? He would dare disturb her grave?_

She barely recognized the Creature, accustomed as she was to seeing him shamble along with his face hidden. Today, he strode along erect, without a care in the world. Most obscene of all, the figure was humming under his breath.

Her jaw hardened and she started after him.

But he was far ahead, and in the space of a moment, had disappeared into the garden’s gates.

She hurried to catch up, her ears straining for the first thump of shovel-blade meeting earth. She gained the gate—

“Good morning, Miss. I’m back.”

The Creature stood with his back to the entrance. The dark mound of earth lay before him, crowned by a wilting bouquet of lilies. Behind the lilies rose the headstone, gray and somber.

She paused, frowning. _What’s he doing?_

The Creature set down the shovel, opened his satchel, and removed something small and square. “I found the seeds. Who knows if they’re the right kind, though.” He bent to gently lift the lilies out of the way, then scattered something over the grave. “There. You shall have grass, in the spring. You've finally found a place away from men and women, under your vaulted sky. Well, maybe not away from dead men and women, but I imagine they don't say much. I would have planted lilies, but I don’t think they’d grow here. And I couldn’t afford the bulbs.”

His task done, he stepped around the grave’s edge to the headstone, and sat down next to it. From the satchel came a sausage, a piece of bread, an apple, and a book. He lifted the book, resting his elbows on his knees.

“I found something new, today, Miss. From Moore: _The time I’ve lost in wooing_. I think you would have laughed to hear it, especially coming from me.” His fingers flipped through the pages to a strip of dirty string used as a bookmark.

In a voice like a well-bowed cello, he read:

 _“The time I’ve lost in wooing,_  
_In watching and pursuing,_  
_The light that lies,_  
_In woman’s eyes,_  
_Has been my heart’s undoing._  
_Though Wisdom oft has sought me,_  
_I scorned the lore she brought me,_  
_My only books_  
_Were woman’s looks,_  
_And folly’s all they’ve taught-“_

Lily looked up and found him watching her. As always, her gaze lingered on the gruesome scar, the blackened lips, and last of all the terrible yellow eyes.

_I’ve nothing to say to him, but I’m not leaving. I must say my good-byes to her._

“What are you doing here,” he asked. The music was gone, his voice now soft and sullen.

She drew herself up. “I’ve come to visit my friend.”

“So have I.”

She nodded toward the shovel. “And that? Have you taken up a new hobby?”

He followed her gaze, then let out a cough of disbelief. “Me? You think me capable of such?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I think you capable of that and much more.”

“Once, perhaps. But no longer.” He turned his attention back to the book. “It’s for my work. I’ve no home, and no job. Nobody can stand to be near me. Miss Ives needed to be looked after, again, so I took work as the groundskeeper.”

“I see. So convenient. I assume you report the freshest bodies to our creator.”

The yellow eyes flashed. “No. In fact I’m careful to keep watch for the resurrectionists.” He gestured at her with the book. “And you? Do you also wait here for fresh materials?”

She blinked. “What?”

He cocked his head. “I know about your ruthless tribe of furies. Victor told me about the women in your fine gentleman’s house. And when stories got around the pubs of angry whores cutting off hands—“

“They were fighting back!” Her hands fisted at her sides. “They were punishing the ones who had just as cruelly hurt them—“

“You waited until they were broken with sorrow, and reassembled them into your own image, just as our Creator did. You used them. Revenge was just an excuse. ”

“How dare you speak of excuses,” she snapped. “How dare you dismiss how the world uses us, how you tried to use me.”

He had the audacity to look ashamed. The black head sank. “I… I am sorry for that. It was wrong.”

Her breath caught at the remark. “Sorry? Wrong? Is that all it takes? Does sorry make it all better? Does sorry make everything unhappen?”

“I cannot unmake the past…” He trailed off, as if something had crossed his mind. “Anyway. I am sorry. I didn’t realize the harm I did you.”

 _Stop it, stop arguing with him, walk away, leave…_ But she had to make him see.

Her lips peeled away from her teeth. “You don’t know what it’s like to have the world take your child away.”

If she had walked across the garden and slapped him, he could not have looked more startled. “What? What did you say?”

Mentioning Sarah drained the anger from her. Now she felt tired. “I don’t expect you to understand. Don’t pretend to.”

He looked hurt, and one white hand went to his chest. “I pretend nothing. My son died only a few days ago.”

_Oh…_

“I’m…” She stopped herself from saying it. “How did he die?”

He was facing her now, arms resting on his knees as he stared at the grave. “He was sick. Consumption. When I came back to them, I frightened him at first, but… he came to accept me. I’m glad that I could be there for him, at the end. We made ships, and I read to him. I was everything for him that Victor wasn’t for me. I did that much right, at least.” The hand left his chest and brushed errant grass seeds off the headstone’s base. “I wish I could have done more for Miss Ives. She was a great friend to me, despite my monstrous visage. And I knew her, before I died.”

_Before I died… What a strange phrase. Only a few words, and yet it is a huge thing that only he and I know. And he lost a child as well... Funny, we tried to force a friendship that might have grown naturally, if we had but let it. But I was so angry, and he was so forward and controlling..._

“This is how you take care of her? Read her poetry?”

“I know she liked it.” As he touched the dark mound, his grotesque face brightened. His mouth was framed by laugh lines. “I know she needs me not. She’s at rest. If her God was true to her, then she is with him. And now she can have night or day, whichever she likes. She can have all the joy and peace that was denied her on Earth. She deserves it.”

Lily chewed her lip. “You really did love her.”

He glanced up at her. “In my own way. But I also… I carry her memory with me. I’ll carry it everlasting, through the immortality with which Victor cursed me. Her name will never be forgotten. It is the only thing I can do for her now. Perhaps it is an unromantic, atheistic type of immortality- the eternal friendship of a monster must count little amongst the holy host-- but it is all I can give her.”

She nodded, considering the grave.

 _The world seems big now, but will no doubt seem smaller in a few hundred years’ time._ She thought of Dorian, alone in his salon as she walked away, surrounded by the faces of the dead.  _Will that be me, some day? Alone, and with no idea what it is to love, to forgive?  Victor created us, but it is for us to decide to stop being monsters._

She swallowed, and approached the Creature.

He watched her with wary eyes, and she recalled with some embarrassment the last time she had seen him, how a kind of madness and rage had overtaken her. Still, she walked on, the grass folding under her shoes.

She paused at the toe of his worn boot.

“There may come a day when our paths again cross – let us not part as enemies.”

She held out a hand.

He stared at it, uncertain. The white face regarded her. “Are we to be friends, then?”

She considered him a long moment, and then forced herself to nod.

He rose from the headstone. Once standing, he closed his cold, callused fingers around hers. He shot her an uncertain look.

She kept her eyes on his, ignoring the scar, the lank hair, and all the other alien details that made him other than human.

The black lips split in happiness. For once, the eyes looked like bright suns rather than anemic moons. “Agreed. Friends, then.”

She forced a smile. “Farewell, John Clare. I hope someday you find someone with whom to speak of poetry.”

“Thank you, Lily. Farewell to you, too.” He tilted his head. “I hope that someday you find a peaceful place of your own, and someone to share it with.”

The forced smile became genuine, and a heaviness lifted from her heart. “I do too.”

She turned, and headed away.

As she went, she heard him sit down, and his pleasant voice resumed murmuring sweet words over the grave.

 

Hours later, she realized she had forgotten her farewell to Vanessa.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ she thought as she packed her trunk in the little, poky room. _I carry her with me, everlasting. And he does, too. We shall carry her name and memory to the ends of the earth, for all time…_  
_…Together._


End file.
